


Don't We Always Find a Way to Carry On

by DoubleL27



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Between 6.09 and 6.10, Caretaking, Coda, David Rose is a Good Person, Episode: s06e09 Coda, Episode: s06e09 Rebound, Episode: s06e10 Sunrise Sunset, Family Feels, Gen, M/M, Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:54:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23208076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoubleL27/pseuds/DoubleL27
Summary: Johnny dropped the suit jacket and stood up, wiping his hands on his slacks. He wouldn’t look David in the eye. “Well, uhhh, you should know that she and Artie—”Dear God! David pursed his lips, sucking them between his teeth. He dipped a little, hands moving in tandem with his body. “We all know it’s not really about Artie.”A gurgle followed by a hiss signaled the water in the shower starting while David and his father stared at each other. Within a few seconds, his father started fidgeting, arranging his suit and glancing to the door. “I have some things—”David closed his eyes and threw his head back. This was how things went. Alexis was his job; she had been since the day they’d put her crib in the nursery with him. David opened his eyes, lips working overtime as he nodded, refusing to look at his father. “Yeah. Yup. Mmmhmm.”orWhenever Alexis falls apart, David is there to pick up the pieces. When things are really bad, though, he lets her wear his clothes.
Relationships: Alexis Rose & David Rose, Patrick Brewer & Alexis Rose, Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 34
Kudos: 233





	Don't We Always Find a Way to Carry On

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to TINN for the beta and title help as always. Thank you to every last person who contributed to discussions and shoved me through the revision process. This has been a week. Let's all be Alexis and let David comfort us. This takes place after the close of 6.09, but contains spoilery-ish info for 6.10.
> 
> Song Title is from Brandi Carlile's In The Morrow...which is one of my favorite songs for the end of Alexis and Ted.

Growing up Rose meant that walking into any space where his family congregated could mean a crisis. Usually, his mother was at the center. David froze in the doorway to the bedroom he shared with his sister to find her head pillowed on their father’s shoulder, sobs racking her frame. His lovely, quiet evening plans to try and soothe Patrick out of his mood over the store not being “good enough” for Jocelyn (really Joceyln wasn’t good enough for the store) evaporated before his eyes. Alexis needed him. 

David sighed and dropped his duffle inside the door. The sound startled his father, whose head swiveled awkwardly around to stare at him. 

“Oh, uh, David,” his Dad stumbled, trying to extract himself from Alexis’s grip, but she held on like a tiny burr. “Good-good that you’re home. We missed you.”

David huffed and slammed the door, flipping the lock. If Alexis was crying on their father’s shoulder there was only one real reason. “What  _ did _ you _ do _ ?” he hissed. 

His dad blinked at him, blankly, before looking briefly to Alexis and then back to David. “I just...showed a-a little fatherly  _ concern _ in regards to your sister’s love life. Th-that’s all.”

“Mmkay.” If  _ that was all, _ David would eat one of his mother’s wigs. For someone who spent most of his life coaxing a sobbing woman out of closets, his father was terrible with Alexis’s feelings. 

David rounded the pair of twin beds and carefully untangled Alexis from her grip on their father’s suit. Bleary red eyes blinked at him before the clinging was transferred to him. Alexis’s wiry but strong arms wound around his neck as her head burrowed into his neck, snuffling sobs back. 

David returned the embrace, counted to thirty and then detangled her again. David held her at arms length, spinning her by the shoulders and giving her a shove in the direction of the bathroom. “Shower. Now. Off you go,” he insisted as she shuffled listlessly across the floor. “You’re all snotty and if we don’t get some serum on you soon your eyes may have flotation devices under them forever.”

That she never turned around to glare at him, or give him the finger, or shoot back a snide comment told David just how deep they were down this hole. Alexis closed the bathroom door behind her and David blew out a heavy breath. With the first step handled, David turned to where his dad sat on Alexis’s bed. He was sitting there, pulling at his suit jacket to stare at the giant wet spot that had developed as Alexis had cried on his shoulder.

“Mmm, I would burn that,” David advised. His father looked up startled, and blinked. “The silk won’t ever recover.”

Johnny dropped the suit jacket and stood up, wiping his hands on his slacks. He wouldn’t look David in the eye. “Well, uhhh, you should know that she and Artie—”

Dear God! David pursed his lips, sucking them between his teeth. He dipped a little, hands moving in tandem with his body. “We all know it’s not really about Artie.”

A gurgle followed by a hiss signaled the water in the shower starting while David and his father stared at each other. Within a few seconds, his father started fidgeting, arranging his suit and glancing to the door. “I have some things—”

David closed his eyes and threw his head back. This was how things went. Alexis was his job; she had been since the day they’d put her crib in the nursery with him. David opened his eyes, lips working overtime as he nodded, refusing to look at his father. “Yeah. Yup. Mmmhmm.”

The steps were simple, familiar, even if he hadn’t seen Alexis this wrecked since she was a child, petite and wide eyed. David was the crier, and everyone knew it. Happy, sad, overwhelmed, scared or any strong emotion and the tears would start, but they would stop like a summer thunderstorm. Alexis was stoic, until she wasn’t, and then it was a torrent of tears that would flood everything like a monsoon. 

“Can you—”

David looked to his father hovering in the doorway. Johnny was pointing at the bathroom door where the steady sound of the shower drowned out the sound of Alexis’s tears. His hands lifted to shoo his father. “Mmmm. Go. Do what you need to do. You’ve done quite enough. Thanks  **_so_ ** much.”    
  
Absolved of his duties, if not his guilt, their father nodded, backed out of the room and closed the door behind him, leaving David to tend Alexis alone. Grabbing his phone, he tapped out a quick succession of messages to Patrick detailing the new shape of his—their evening, really. David ended it with an emphatic  **DO NOT COME OVER** followed by  **SPARE YOURSELF** . Patrick would want to be helpful but he wouldn’t understand how to maneuver through the deep eddies of Alexis’s grief like David did. He wasn’t even sure Alexis would want Patrick to see her this way. Maybe tomorrow.

He had at least an hour to prepare the space, knowing full well that Alexis would be in the bathroom at least that long. David grabbed tissues and stuck them next to the bed from their space on her desk. Next, he crossed to his knits trunk. A good wallow had always been David’s area of expertise and none of Alexis’s clothes were made for it. She had the looks for Coachella or Equinox or some society dinner, not for the massive depressive episode she had been avoiding by dating a guy as old as their dad. Besides, it was tradition.

The first time Alexis had worn David’s clothes in a crisis had been a true emergency. Alexis had bothered him all day, wanting to play and David being a very mature eight had not wanted to play with a very young four-year old Alexis. Somewhere in that time, Alexis had gotten in her head to play The Little Mermaid at the pool by herself. He and Adelina had spotted her just before she’d gone completely under. Adelina had called for Esteban, the gardener, to call 911 as they raced for the pool. 

David had stood by the pool’s edge, arms wrapped around himself as Adelina had jumped in and dragged Alexis’s tiny body out of the water. Adelina had told him to go get towels from the pool house as Alexis coughed up water, but David had slipped off the ESPRIT sweatshirt he’d coveted for weeks, and held it out for Adelina to slip over Alexis’s head. 

She’d worn it all the way to the hospital and screamed when they’d wanted to take it off her. David had given her the sweatshirt, when he slipped it on and scrunched up the sleeves, Alexis had looked so small, swimming inside it. She took to wearing it to sleep, to curl up in when the nightmares came, wore it every time his parents made them come out to show off by their friends by the pool. His mother would try to bother Alexis into better clothes for guests by the pool, but Alexis would wear that ESPRIT sweater like a dress, and charm the whole party. Most of his knits would still swim on her petite body. 

While Adelina was still cleaning up the disaster of Alexis’s ninth birthday party, David had sat in the corner, eating an additional piece of cake for his suffering. Alexis had slunk back downstairs in one of David’s coveted Givenchy sweaters with wide-leg sweats that swam around her feet. Something about having a million friends show up and trash the house and zero acknowledgement of the day from their parents. David had railed at her about skipping past the DO NOT, ALEXIS! sign posted on his door and neither piece going together let alone belonging on her body, but she’d just stared at him with those wide eyes and the tears had fallen. David had just opened his arms and let her fall against him. That night when she’d crawled into his bed, he let her, despite all of his protests that they were both too old for this.

Over the years, only the most desperate of times called for the very desperate measure of Alexis curling up in his clothes: a particularly bad escape from Yemen found her in New York with no luggage, Stavros leaving her to take rap for possessing his drugs. David felt like breaking up with Ted might be the most devastating of Alexis’s heartbreaks yet, because she was different now, softer, kinder and more thoughtful. She actually loved Ted, something David was certain had never been true about her feelings towards a single Stavros.   
  
Going through the pile of sweaters and sweatshirts, David took out his oversized gray, Rick Owens hoodie with the gathered fabric. It was perfect. Large enough to be comforting and the French terry wouldn’t be entirely mangled when he inevitably had to wash it after Alexis made it all gross and germy. David laid it out on the end of the bed. 

He crossed to the closet, face twisting sideways, as he found his pile of joggers and considered. The largest, baggiest and fleece lined pair and added it to the pile. He grabbed one of her white tanks and threw it on top. David went to the Love Room and got a pair of thick, wool winter socks for her to put on her feet. 

Clothes, tissues, bed. David ticked off the list. They needed some terrible TV to watch and snacks. If it were David, he would want a mall pretzel to start with. His phone buzzed in his pocket and David fished it out.

_ Hey, are you sure I can’t help? You don’t have to take care of everything alone.  _

_ We’re family now. For better or worse. _

David had been mostly joking when he’d told Patrick he couldn’t back out now while they’d sat with his family. Patrick typing out those words: family, for better or worse, made tears prick at David’s own eyes. He didn’t have time for all of this, for falling apart because this wonderful man loved him and wasn’t going to run away in the face of his family’s insanity. The guilt came next, flooding him, because Patrick actually wasn’t going anywhere, and Ted was never coming back. At least not any time soon.

**snacks**

**ill send a list**

David quickly made a list in notes and shared it. He underlined the mall pretzels and the cookie dough cream emphatically so that Patrick would know he meant it. Everybody needed a whole collection of snacks to get through these kind of emotional tragedies (David should know), and a smoothie made by Twyla was as comforting as licking a rusty nail.

They had Interflix on Alexis’s laptop and a slew of their mother’s VHSes and DVDs that had been tossed into bags when they had been thrown from their home. Apparently the revenue service didn’t count “Not Without My Cousin” or several box sets of “Sunrise Bay” as valuable assets to be repossessed. Alexis had also thrown in most of her hot men eye candy movies including the entire Fast and Furious franchise. The threesome with Michelle Rodreguez and Jordana Brewster had been amazing, but David still never developed the taste for terrible action films that Alexis had.

Movie, snacks, shower, sweats, bed, tissues...David cast about for the necessary ingredients for an appropriate broken heart session. He needed something. What the fuck was he missing? Something was...fuck.

Alexis had been eleven when she had come home from a modeling gig and stuffed every last one of her stuffed animals into trash bags.  _ I’m not a baby anymore, David  _ she’d thrown at him from inside her bedroom when he’d asked her what she was doing. But he had known she’d taken Mr. Cuddles, her favorite bunny with her when she’d flown to Croatia for the job. Her jaw had been set determinedly and there had been a fire in her eyes that he couldn’t fight with. Still, Alexis liked to hold onto things when she was upset. If he wasn’t careful, the sweater he laid out for her wasn’t going to be the only thing she possibly ruined. 

There were no stuffed animals in the room. Alexis didn’t like them and David had finally gotten rid of his last one at the tender age of seventeen. He needed...he needed... David dove for the mini pillow on his bed. It was better than his own person being covered entirely in snot and drool for as long as it took to put the pieces of Alexis’s broken heart back together. All things considered, it could take forever.

In anticipation of having to vacate the room when Alexis finally emerged, David got together his own pajamas to bring into the bathroom with him. 

When the bathroom door opened, Alexis shuffled out, wrapped in her robe, hair done up in a turban. Her eyes remained trained on the floor as she headed for the bed.

“I-I’m going to wash off the effects of the day,” David told her.

Alexis nodded mutely, never looking up at him and David felt his heart twist. As much as she annoyed the ever living fuck out of him, Alexis didn’t deserve this. Not knowing what to do, David crossed to the bathroom himself. She better have left him some fucking hot water.

“David, what—” Alexis pulled at the sweatpants and held them up. David hesitated, waiting for whatever she had to say. A sob hitched out of her mouth, and tears began to stream from her eyes again. “Thanks,” she said wetly, cuddling the sweatpants to her chest.

“You’re welcome.”

David slipped into the bathroom and brushed his teeth before taking on his usual 9-step skin care routine. Every now and then he stopped to listen to the sound of Alexis shuffling through her own process, getting into bed. The sound of Vin Diesel's gravelly voice came through the screen and David rolled his eyes. It was something, at least. 

Poking his head out of the door, he took one look at Alexis’s face in the blue TV light, the hood drawn up over her head like a cloak. Damp hair in hoods was incorrect, but David swallowed the lecture. “Did you do anything to your face?”

Alexis swiveled her head to look at him, chin curled over his lumbar throw pillow, entirely swimming in his oversized hoodie. His bright, bubbly sister has been reduced to a dull husk and it never gets easier to see it. “Cleanser, toner, moisturizer,” she parroted before turning blank eyes to the screen.

The temptation to give an entirely different lecture about appropriate skin care bubbled in David’s throat, but honestly she had done more than he would have in her place. He hadn’t touched his face at all the two days following the deviststing Barbeque Incident of 2016. Only after Stevie had fully manhandled him to the spa had he gotten back to his routine and that was four months and zero I love yous into his time with Patrick. The idea of losing Patrick now, when they’d come so far, sent a chill through David’s body and caused his stomach to twist sharp and painful. If he were Alexis he wouldn’t consider leaving bed for a minimum of two months, but Alexis had always been more resilient. 

David ducked back inside their bathroom and grabbed the emergency box of very expensive under eye patches. He’d put a round on her tonight for early preventative measures and another when the actual crying sessions were done. He lifted a set from the box and slipped out of the bathroom.

Perching on the edge of Alexis’s bed David ordered, “Tilt your head up, please.”

Alexis curled further around his lumbar pillow, her knees covered in beautiful French terry that he would yell at her for stretching any other time. “I’m watching this.”

“You’ve seen it a million times,” David reminded her, rolling his eyes hard. “I’m saving your face here.”

“Fine, David.”

Alexis tilted her head back, and David carefully peeled the patches off of the backing and smoothed them on to the puffy circles that were already developing under Alexis’s red-rimmed eyes. It reminded David of when they had been kids, stealing things out of his mother’s mountains of makeup to practice in their bathroom on the other side of the house. His face twitched as he focused on getting the second one on straight. He gave each side a last final smooth out with his ring finger, not ready to stop doing this tiny thing for his baby sister. This was how they had been trained to show affection. Their mother’s love had always come in the form of carefully selected outfits and skin care tutorials and health regimens meant for her two child actor children. 

Tears started to well in her eyes again. David lifted a stern finger, “No! The patches need ten minutes. You can’t cry until we take them off.”

Alexis opened her mouth but whatever she wanted to say was interrupted by a sharp knock on the door. Alexis’s mouth snapped shut and her head whipped to the door before she turned a murderous glare on David, her lips pressed into a thin line, devoid of color. 

“It’s just Patrick! I made him go get us snacks.”

Alexis curled around the pillow and sunk further into her terrible motel comforter. David unfolded himself from her bed and crossed to open the door. Patrick stood with two grocery bags slung over his arm, two warm mall pretzels in one hand and a suspiciously large white box in the other. “That was a very conservative list, David. It only required a trip to Elmdale and Elm Glen.”

“You better have gotten the mall pretzels last so they’re still warm.”

Patrick pulled back the mall pretzels, and raised his eyebrows that were visible again after the effects of the over-sunkissed skin had faded. “Is Alexis in crisis, or are you?”

David reached out and pinched at Patrick’s shoulders, giving a thoughtful hum. “Umm, both.”

“I see.” Patrick pushed forward, big box in the way, and David moved back to let him into the room. Patrick, who grew up with zero siblings and by all accounts didn’t need to be here, caught sight of Alexis curled up in bed and gave her a soft smile. “Hey.”

Alexis lifted a listless hand from the pillow and gave him a wave so sad it could only be considered eighth-hearted, her hair still tucked inside the turban. 

“David? A little help.” Patrick waved the hand with the bags and the mall pretzels, which David grudgingly relieved him of. He reached for the white box but Patrick closed his now free hand over it, tugging it out of his space. “Nope, this is just for Alexis.”

David gave an exaggerated pout but Alexis perked up in bed for the first time. She gave a tiny hum that David could just make out under the sound of the racing engines on the screen. The tiny pillow tumbled to the floor, forgotten, as pushed against the mattress to sit up a little higher. Her hands reached out like a child as Patrick got closer and brought the white box down to her lap. He tossed the pillow up on the foot of the bed as he sat down.

David kept shooting glances at them as he laid the snacks out on the table. It was a good thing he did because the second Patrick flipped open the lid to the box, Alexis burst into a fresh round of tears. 

“Oh, okay,” Patrick mumbled, the lid on the box lowering slowly. Patrick shot a panicked look over his shoulder, calling out, “David!?”

“No!” He yelled at Alexis as he crossed the space between them in swift strides. “You have another eight minutes!” He turned on Patrick, flipping the lid of the box back up. “What—” But his words died out because laying inside the box was a fucking giant heart cookie, becuase Patrick’s sense of humor was a mix of irony and sarcasm. In the middle of it were a few poorly drawn icing crows.

David bit the inside of his cheek, not wanting to smile at Patrick while Alexis sobbed. Patrick looked back at him with worried doe-eyes and his mouth was twitching like it did every time he was nervous. David plucked the cookie box from Patrick’s hands. “You’re impossible. You broke her; she’s your problem now.”

Patrick’s voice rose to his high-pitched protest tone. “I didn’t—”

Without the box in the way and with the comfort pillow out of reach, Alexis glommed onto Patrick. Within seconds, Patrick’s startled expression melted into concern as he gathered Alexis into his arms with the same kind of care he relegated for David. David sighed as he watched Patrick’s strong hands make wide paths over Alexis’s back while she wept bitterly.

Feeling that at least Alexis was handled, even if those eye patches were going to be rendered useless by the sobbing, David headed to the table with the cookie. The cookie looked fucking amazing as he put it down. Unable to resist, he dipped a finger into the box to touch it. Still amazingly soft.

“Gross, David!” Alexis growled, and David jerked up to see her head pillowed on Patrick’s shoulder. “That’s  _ my _ cookie. Don’t put your disgusting fingers all over it.”

“ _ My _ disgusting fingers!?” David retorted, his chin retreating into his neck. “The last thing I touched was  _ your  _ face.  _ I _ am not the one—” 

Before he could get into what he was certain was Alexis’s lack of hygienic care at the moment and the fact that she was leaking from her whole face, Patrick interrupted him, “Oh, for God’s sake. David, there are  _ two _ mall pretzels on the table that we  _ all  _ know are for you. Eat them before they get cold.”

“It’s still soft,” David told them with a sniff as he lifted one of the pretzels to take a bite. “Just so you know.”

Alexis gave a whine and stretched out her grabby hands towards David. David swallowed his bite, shaking his head vigorously. “ _No_. You’re just going to get _crumbs_ _all_ in the bed.”

Within seconds, David was deflecting his lumbar pillow which Alexis had lobbed at him. This time a growl emerged for Alexis as she pointed at the end of the bed. 

David plucked his pillow off the floor, which he was willing to allow slobber and snot to mar its surface for the extenuating circumstances, but it definitely did not belong on the floor. “This is on loan. Be nice to it.” If it was knocked off thrice, David would reclaim possession of the lumbar pillow.

Patrick slipped off the bed without David having noticed and retrieved the cookie. “Here you go, Alexis.” Her lips fluttered, curling up for the barest of moments before flattening back out. 

“Uhcccch!” David squwaked at his fiance as Patrick turned to him and Alexis ripped a chunk off of the cookie. “ _ Crumbs _ in the  _ bed _ .”

“Okay, it’s not your bed,” Patrick soothed, stepping up into David’s space and rubbing his hands over David’s chest. “You don’t have to sleep in it.”

“It’s incorrect,” David returned, smirking and taking another bite out of his mall pretzel.

“Are you going to make it?”

“Unclear,” David returned with a smile.

“Mmm. Well,” Patrick leaned up to press another kiss to David’s lips and David smiled into the kiss. Patrick pulled back and grinned, “Now that I know that eating in the bed is incorrect, I will be sure to enforce that policy at the apartment.”

David’s smile fell away, head shaking quickly at Patrick’s smirk. “Alexis is messy. I-I am much more talented at eating in bed than Alexis. She always leaves the bed full of crumbs. I do not. I do not.”

“Cuz you have more experience,” Alexis mumbled, mouth full of cookie, crumbs definitely falling into bed.

“ _ See! _ ”

“My work here is done.” Patrick pressed a kiss to David’s neck just under the shell of his ear. David gave a purr that slid into a whine as Patrick pulled away. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The room suddenly went silent, the TV paused with a car midflip. Patrick stopped short as Alexis whispered into the quiet, “Wait. Where are you going?”

“Uhh,” Patrick glanced to David and they shot back and forth silent looks until Patrick flicked his eyes back to Alexis. “I just figured you and David might want some time, you know, alone. Just here to drop off snacks.”

“No,” Alexis insisted, shaking her head. “You’re more than a snack fairy. Come. Sit. Watch.”

David plucked at the shoulders of Patrick’s sweater with anxious fingers. “Alexis, it’s late and Patrick opens the store. He should probably go home.”

Her voice held the barest hint of teasing as Alexis said, “You can’t kick out my favorite brother, David.”

Patrick’s hands dipped into his pockets as he flipped between Alexis and David. He cleared his throat before saying, “I, uh, I packed a bag just in case. I can stay, if-if that’s okay with you two. I don’t want—“

“Go get your bag,” David ordered him, bussing a quick kiss over Patrick’s lips. “We’ll be here.”

“Okay.”

David stalked over to the desk Alexis used as a vanity and workstation and grabbed her large toothed comb from the table. She was already scooched forward slightly to be closer to the cookie and when he closed in, he waved her to move up. The bed dipped as David sat behind her. He reached up and undid the turban, letting out Alexis’s wet, dirty blond locks. 

Starting with the ends, David slid a hand underneath and began carefully [combing] through the strands, mindful of any tangles. It took only a minute for David to realize she was crying again. Not the body wracking sobs from earlier but a light weeping that made her shoulders tremble and little mewling sounds to escape from her lips. David pressed his lips together and kept brushing.

“I thought I would never have to look at another dating app again, either,” Alexis whispered to him between little cries. David’s breath catches, remembering back to when he’d shut Patrick out of fear. This isn’t fear that’s coursing through Alexis. Unlike him, Alexis remained incredibly strong, willing to let Ted fly rather than beg him to stay. David abandoned a set of strands at her crown and moved over to pick up a fresh section of hair. He focused on carefully carding the comb through the long strands. 

They were still there when Patrick returned, settling his backpack by David’s leather duffle and closing the door with a soft snick. He grabbed the toiletries bag that David carefully packed for him ages ago with lectures about appropriate skin care and the need for the same products to follow you. Their eyes caught over Alexis’s bent head and David attempted a smile. Patrick just mouthed  _ I love you,  _ before slipping into the sad motel bathroom.

The sound of Patrick puttering through the evening routine David was soothing. They could have just as easily been in Patrick’s apartment as they were here in the room David has called home for the last three years. Home wasn’t really a place for him anymore, like his SoHo loft or this motel. Home was the man who brought Alexis snacks and was prepared to leave them but brought a bag just in case to stay.

Was Ted the same for Alexis, and somehow she chose to leave her home behind, or were they not the same? Not that she should have gone galavanting off to the Galapagos. Even thinking of it made his stomach pitch again like it had every time she had mentioned getting on a plane and leaving. She was here for him to silently comb out her hair and put eyepatches on her face and clothe in his comforting but chic clothes. David would take watching her spiraling out in person every day over sitting on the other side of a silent phone praying to gods he didn’t believe in that she would call him back. 

“Hey,” Patrick said, sliding out of the bathroom in his sweats. “I was thinking about ordering pizza. Two should be good.” 

“Three?” David pressed, glancing up from his task. “I’m going to require at least one whole pizza for myself.”

Patrick slid a glance at Alexis and then looked back at David, eyes unblinking and wide. David rolled his eyes because yes, his emotional state was such that he required a whole pizza. Alexis sat between them oblivious to the inaudible conversation they were having while she stared at the TV. David waved the comb at Patrick in a wide approximation of a circle and watched as those lips he adored fluttered into a small smile. “Okay, David.”

Patrick grabbed his phone to make the call and David smiled to himself as he returned to grooming his sister. As deep as her devastation cut, Alexis was going to be okay. David wasn’t the only one here to pick the pieces of Alexis up anymore. He had Patrick, Stevie would step up if he needed her, and even their dad had tried. Patrick caught his eye in the midst of rattling off the familiar pizza order and smiled again. David returned the smile, letting out a quiet hum as he finished off another section off Alexis’s hair. They would get her through this as a family. 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was spawned in the wake of 6.10 and the revelation that Alexis was in David's sweater from 6.01. Through the Rosebudd discussion, it came up that rather than Alexis stealing them, David probably started leaving out clothes for her as an offering a long time ago. Then I had to write it, because I adore these two siblings. 
> 
> Thank you for reading. I hope you're staying safe in these trying times. I appreciate all of you.
> 
> Alternate titles included: _you take the weight off me_ and _nothing aches quite like goodbye_


End file.
